Interview: Rob Harrop on SpringSource dm Server and OSGi

In this interview made by InfoQ’s Srini Penchikala, Rob Harrop talks about SpringSource dm Server, its OSGi based modularity and the advantages it offers. He also touches other adjacent topics like support for Java EE6, cloud computing, JMX, and others.

Rob starts this interview by outlining the differences between SpringSource dm Server and other application servers. The main feature, and Rob insists upon it throughout the interview, is dm Server’s OSGi modularity. Spring clients are particularly interested in deploying only the components they need, and OSGi offers that. While many vendors have started to build their own product on OSGi, they are not providing the same benefits to their customers who are using their application servers. One big challenge was “trying to marry the two worlds of traditional enterprise Java with the wealth of open source and commercial code that already exists and the new world of OSGi”, said Rob.

dm Server is OSGi based, being made up of OSGi bundles, and offers the option to deploy other OSGi based applications, but it also lets one deploy WAR based application, and there are plans to support the future Java EE web profiles.

Spring 3.0 will probably be released before Java EE6, according to Rob, and it will support its main features like web beans, servlets 3.0, EJB 3.1. Spring won’t necessarily support all the new features introduced by Java EE6, but only those requested by users. Rob insists on having the users driving the development process of the SpringSource products, and not trying to spend time and energy on cool features that are not high priority for the community and their customers.

One interesting topic covered was Cloud Computing and Rob explains what are the challenges and features a platform must have to be cloud ready. Other topics touched were: JMX, rewriting Grails for dm Server, an OSGi mass adoption strategy, OSGi roadmap.